Ben's 1st Steps

Ben has been walking like crazy this week. This afternoon, we decided to recreate his 1st steps for all of our family and friends who live SO far away!

Please pause the music at the bottom of the page before playing this video!

Fun With The Myers Family

The rest of the Myers crew drove into Gainesville Friday afternoon. They were on their way to Perdido Key for 10 days. I would have been pretty jealous if we weren't heading there ourselves in 2 weeks! We always have a good time when Uncle Denny and Aunt Paula come to visit - free meals and a personal housekeeper help to make their time with us extra special :-) And Drew's travel collection of DVD's rivals any blockbuster I've ever been to!

We took the Myers' around to some of our favorite places in Gainesville, including Haile Village, campus (when the students are gone for the summer!) and, of course, Haagan Dasz.

While most kids with chunky cheeks prefer not to have their cheeks squeezed, Ben couldn't get enough of it! Uncle Denny would get a hold on Ben's jowls and say "Squeeze your cheeks". Ben would lean in for more each time. He was also a big fan of the mustache. It reminded him of his Touch and Feel books in an oddly familiar way!
We also spent some time at the pool each day. Ben was entertained by Maddie's fascinating pool tricks and was very impressed with her freestyle. He clapped for her each time she swam a lap!
If you remember my post about Ben's love for being sprayed off by hoses, this picture will come as no surprise. Ben would be content to spend his time at the pool right here under the shower.
Ben's friend, Luca, came to play for a few hours on Saturday while Luke and Jenny were out of town. Carl volunteered to stay with the 2 boys during nap time as long as all 5 of us carried our cellphones in case of an emergency. Carl considered both boys waking up before we got home a definite emergency! Luckily, Luca is a great napper and slept soundly until Carl had reinforcements back in place!

Thanks again to Uncle Denny, Aunt Paula, Drew, and Mo for the great visit. We miss you guys!

First Steps And A Visit From Maddie

This was an exciting week for Ben. Our playgroup has been meeting at the Florida Museum of Natural History on Wednesday mornings this summer. They have a nice Discovery Room with activities for the little ones to enjoy (and more importantly, it has air conditioning!). Ben loves to show off in front of an audience, so he decided to take his first steps in front of friends. He basked in the glory of the cheers and claps he received from those around him!

And just when he thought his week couldn't get any more spectacular, he was surprised to wake up and see his cousin Maddie! She flew in from IL Wednesday night to spend some quality alone time with Ben. Ben met Maddie when he was a few weeks old and it was definitely love at first site! He even gave her one of his first smiles! It was so nice to have her here to entertain our busy guy. She spent lots of time walking him around the house, and of course, clapping for him! I wish I could afford to hire her as our nanny during U of I breaks!

Taking a few steps all by himself!
On Friday morning, we took Ben to Sun Country for open gym. He likes to sit on the seat in the picture above because it overlooks the play area and he can get a good view of all of the action!
In preparation for the summer Olympics, he has been working on both the high bar and parallel bars! I am slightly obsessed with the Olympic games, so I'm trying to build Ben's enthusiasm as well!

Edit: After reading this post, Carl wanted me to clarify that in the picture above, Ben was not performing an impressive 1/2 Pirouette on the high bar. He was actually completing a very manly set of 10 pull ups!

Blueberry Pancakes

A family favorite for breakfast!

New Things

Ben has picked up a few new tricks since we've been home. His morning nap has been pretty sporadic these past couple of weeks, so I think he's about ready to drop it for good. He's also developed a habit of squealing whenever he wants to move to a new location, which is pretty much every couple of minutes. Because he's not into crawling (aka he still can't do it!) and still needs a hand to help him walk, our time at home involves me walking him around the house all day. This combined with no am nap means that we MUST get out of the house and do something each morning. Luckily, our playgroup has scheduled activities 2-3 times per week, and we have been spending a lot more time at the pool! Ben has also started giving kisses at will and on demand. This is probably my favorite new trick!
Going to whole milk has been a harder transition than I thought it would be. He loves cheese, smoothies, yogurt, and ice cream, so I was a bit confused when he refused the milk from his sippy. That is until I discovered his new obsession with straws. He downed 8 oz of whole milk with his new sippy cup (with a straw!) yesterday afternoon!

Ben also likes to push his own strollers and wagon these days. It makes for a pretty slow walk, but he did take a 3 hour nap yesterday afternoon, so the trade-off is just fine with me!
Carl's cousin, David, is in town visiting right now. He's great with Ben and we love having familiar faces around again! I have to admit that I was a little blue yesterday. My sister had 2 extra tickets to the John Mayer concert up at Tinley Park. We have a history of seeing great John Mayer shows together and I would have loved to live close enough to go to this one, too. Just another reason why we have to move back to IL in a couple of years! Our neighbor, Maia, was kind enough to come over and stay with Ben last night so the 3 of us could go out for some fabulous sushi! I love Ben, but going out to a nice dinner and enjoying a cocktail with adults only helped to make me feel a little bit better about not being at the concert!

We went to the farmer's market at Haile this morning and visited Ben's favorite fountain afterwards.

Can you believe that Carl wants to cut these beautiful curls? I won't even think of budging until someone calls him a girl!

Illinois Trip Recap

This is a little late, but here is a summary of our trip to IL.

We flew into Bloomington on Saturday, June 21st. Carl and Ben headed over to his parents for Grandpa and Grandma Beagles 60th wedding anniversary celebration! Members from the Beagles family traveled from all over the state, as well as Tennessee and Alabama to honor Grandpa and Grandma Beagles. It is pretty amazing that our 4 sets of grandparents have all celebrated at least 50 years together.

This is a picture of the entire Beagles family (minus me and Gina, who is busy in medical school right now!)
Grandpa and Grandma with all of the grandkids
Grandpa and Grandma with the great-grandkids (plus a couple of daddies!)

Carl and his siblings

Unfortunately, the morning that we flew into IL, my mom was hit by a drunk driver while jogging north of Gridley. It is truly a miracle that she survived and we know that she was protected by angels. Dad says that he has always been aware of mom's close relationship with God, but even he was impressed that it seems she has a direct line right to Him! The driver's car was totalled (all of the kids inside were fine), but Mom sustained only a concussion, deep tissue bruising and extreme soreness. Times like those make you realize how quickly your life can change. I am so thankful that mom's life was spared on Ben's birthday and we were reminded in a dramatic way what an incredibly important role she has in our family. I don't think any of us can even think about what we would do without her!

We spent the next weekend at Lake Bloomington. Our good friends from college, Greg and Katie, came down from Chicago to spend Friday night with us. We always love catching up with them and it was great to finally play euchre again (this is definitely a Midwestern game!). And of course the hours spent on politics and other controversial topics was great fun (especially when you have Paul Laiming defending the right and Kimberly defending the left (even though you swear you haven't switched over to the dark side!)

We got up Saturday morning and took Ben on his first hike through East Bay camp. It was good to know that the 3 bears still live in their old cabin!

Below are some pictures from Sat the 28th Mike spent some time teaching Ben about the finer things in life. Ben was obviously disgusted by the Miller coozie!
Kim and Paula
Susan and Anne
Ben and Paul I

Ben loved Paul's bug-themed 2nd birthday party. He got to go hunting for plastic bugs and ate his first bug shaped PB&J sandwich. This is also his first experience with a juice box - the kid was in heaven!!
The birthday boy!

Ben and I also got to see Abe and Em's new house in Roanoke. Ben and Jude had fun pushing the wagon around and eating pizza together. There was a little incident involving the Little People school bus, but I think that they've both moved on from that and were thankfully still friends when they saw each other on the 4th!
One of Ben's most memorable experiences from the trip was his first visit to Stauter Farms. He's pictured above with Denny and Grandpa Nelson. He had the best time playing with the kittens (I think that Pumpkin and Jil were his favorites!)

Ben decided (without being prompted) that he wanted to give this cat a kiss!
Ben also loved meeting Denny's horse Shotgun. He has a touch and feel book with a picture of a horse on it and since we've been home he leans in and gives it a little kiss.

Ben picking Shotgun's nose.
Ben and Nana Bev
Ben also had fun meeting Susan's and Nancy's grandkids at McGraw park for a picnic Thursday afternoon. It will probably be a LONG time before this group gets together again, so a picture of everyone had to at least be ATTEMPTED! It was obviously a little hard to get everyone to cooperate, even with suckers used as bribery. . . .

Ben also had a good time swimming with his cousin's Connor, Lukie, Melissa, Jeff, Andrea, and Craig at Grandpa and Grandma Drake's house. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pics since I was in the water with him!
4th of July with Grandpa and Nana. Ben fell asleep before the french toast, omelets, and bacon were done. I think that 4th of July brunch at the lake ranks right up there with Thanksgiving and Christmas meals!
Ben enjoyed taking his turn as captain of the pontoon

Picture of Ben right before doing a surprise back flip off the mat
After he was rescued (good thing his mommy was a lifeguard!)

Ben's favorite part of the 4th was definitely going down the "slide". Maddie helped Ben get ready for his 3 foot slide into the lake. He had an audience of about 10 people watching this great achievement and he didn't disappoint. When finished, he would turn to all of his fans and clap for himself! Then he would reach up for Maddie and get ready to do it all over again!


Ben was happy that he got to hang out with Uncle Johnny one more time before heading back to Florida!

It was great to see so many family and friends when we were home. We have a few visitors lined up for the next few months, but always have room for more!!